Women’s basketball places ninth in preseason poll
The Atlantic 10 announced the results of its preseason poll today, picking GW ninth of 14 teams, with 73 points.
GW went 8-21 last year, struggling with injuries for the second year in a row. The Colonials posted a 3-11 record in league match-ups, tying for 11th in the conference.
This season, head coach Mike Bozeman anticipates that his team, joined by three new recruits, will take to the court healthy, and with increased depth across the roster and on the bench. Those improvements, Bozeman said, mean greater expectations for his squad.
“This year we are going to be looking for bigger and better things,” Bozeman said. “There’s more competition in practice which means you’re going to have a better idea of what you look like in game time on the floor.”
The Colonials return four starters and six of last season’s top-scorers, including junior guard Danni Jackson, who led GW with 10.4 points per game. After being sidelined due to injury her freshman year, Jackson carried the team offensively last season, not only setting the benchmark in points, but also in assists, averaging 4.2 per game, and minutes, averaging 32.2 minutes per game.
The 5-foot-3 guard plays with a “chip on her shoulder,” Bozeman said, but has the skills to back it up.
“Let me put it this way, if Danni was three inches taller, she wouldn’t be at GW, I’m sure she’d be at one of the quote-unquote major colleges,” Bozeman said.
Bozeman also spoke to the increasingly competitive field within the league. For the third time in conference history, and the third time in three years, the A-10 had eight of 14 teams reach post-season play.
The league’s success, Bozeman said, is a change from years past, but he welcomes its more challenging line-up.
“When I was with [former GW head coach] Joe [McKeown], there was a time when you could go down a list of the teams in the conference and you could pick out wins. Now from the first team to the teams all the way through the conference, you can’t put a check mark in the win column versus anyone,” Bozeman said. “The parity in our conference is great for a competition junkie like myself.”
The Colonials dive into their non-conference schedule Nov. 8, when they host UDC in an exhibition game before heading to UT Arlington Nov. 13. League play kicks off Jan. 7, when GW hosts Fordham, and Bozeman is looking forward to a challenging season.
“That’s what you get in the A-10 conference, that night-in, night-out competition,” he said.
Number Crunch: 9
The rank, out of 14 teams, of the women’s basketball team in the Atlantic 10 preseason poll.
